I think all of these questionable tactics ... create a political vacuum where public participation becomes neutralized. ...
It has made me feel that power seekers from behind the scenes run the government. To me, these people are seeking financial power that denigrates the freedom and action of government in its democratic deliberations and its democratic right to self-rule that is further rooted in “we the people.”
But now (President Barack) Obama has made me wrong in my life-long assessment and I can only hope his political prowess and outright ingenuity can mitigate and make impotent some of the power seeking and irregularities that I believe was the real political conundrum of government practice. He got his wherewithal to do what he did from the will of the American people.
Our president — through government interdiction, with military expertise — washed the slate clean for me. ... It gave the government an authenticity and realness it did not enjoy before.
... It’s terrible to think that killing a man (Osama bin Laden) can give new insight into the government’s capacity to self-rule. It also exposed the American people to their own meaning and worth — we the people. I hope this cleaning of the blackboard and deeper insight will predicate other ways of expressing the American character.
Over my 80 years, I have come to believe that the government can do things for us that we can’t do for ourselves. The Civil War is a good example.
Obama has acted in our behalf with imperative truth, clearly witnessed in observable fact. His actions represent a free people acting out their right to a civil society. It is well-rooted democratic ethos. ...
Dick Farnsworth
Middletown